When typing in 'it recruitment' into Google, the firm i am working with rank 5th however according to a SEOmoz report, we are not on the first page at all.

There is a 'google plus' phrase under the listing.

If you can share your thoughts on this it would be most appreciated

gezzagregz

Without knowing for sure which company you are, and which country you are in, it's a bit difficult to say where I see you; but for this search in the UK I see 'hays' as 5th.

In addition to what David has said:

If you are seeing greatly different resutls from others (not just SEOMoz) then my initial 'guess' would be that you are seeing personalised results that have promoted you in 'your' results. (Remember also that different data centres and different countries of search can affect positions too - SEOMoz will, I expect, be hitting US data centres, so could have an effect depending where you are based)

There are ways to try and limit the 'personalisation' of results, but the fastest way I knew used to work (hopefully still does) is to add '&pws=0' to the end of the URL AFTER you have done your search and then re-send the URL (not hit the search button!). Then see where you appear then (I hope still #5 ).